His words made me feel very young. And they raised up an obstinate spirit within me. “I do not wish to.”
His sigh sounded of exasperation. “I will tell no one.”
“ ’Tis not that you will tell or not. ’Tis simply that it must not be done.”
“Do you love the boy or not?”
“Lust is better left unprovoked until the marriage bed.”
“Have you never kissed him?”
I could not lie again. “Nay.”
“And he has never tried to kiss you?”
“Truly, I must decline to—”
“Were you mine, I would be well familiar with your sweet ways by now.”
I did not like what he was insinuating. And the thought of it, of him, sent a not unpleasant sensation through my belly, as if I were sliding into some deliciously cool stream. Why should the thought of kissing the captain provoke such a feeling when the thought of kissing John provided no reaction at all? He was a devil indeed! I gave one last rather violent tug on the cloth.
He let go, and I fell sprawling onto my backside in the brush.
“Oh, pity! Here.” He extended a hand to help me.
“Captain Holcombe?” The voice was followed by a snapping of twigs and limbs.
Frustration and resentment vied for control of the captain’s face.
“Captain?” The voice was louder. I could identify it now as John’s.
“Oh, for—!” He let go my hand and stood with indecision for a moment. And then he pressed me to the ground, throwing his cloak over me. Scrambling to sit beside me, he propped an elbow between my ribs, leaning against me as if I might have been a log.
“Ow! Could you—”
“If you do not want that boy to accuse you of something worse than consorting with the likes of me, be still!” he hissed.
“Captain Holcombe?” John asked.
“Aye, lad.”
“Is all . . . are you all right?”
“Aye.”
“I heard a great rustling . . .”
An elbow ground down into my rib. “Just . . . uh . . . stepped upon something, lad.”
“Can you watch from there?”
“What’s that?”
“Do you not have trouble seeing from there?”
“Oh. Aye. Well. We must attend to the . . . necessary every now and then, must we not?”
I drove a fist into the small of the captain’s back. He grunted in response.
“Pardon me? Was there something else, Captain?” John’s voice was tentative.
“Uh . . . aye. Aye, there was.” He settled against me as if he meant to enjoy himself. “You are a man unmarried. If you were courting a girl, would you not wish to take advantage of a night such as this?”
“Advantage? How so?”
“If I were such a young man as you, I would . . . well . . . I mean . . . with the moonlight and a girl close at hand . . . I suppose I might want to kiss her.”
“You would?”
“Why? Would you not?”
“Of course not.”
“Nay?”
“Nay.”
“Come on, lad. Man to man. Of course you would.”
“Of course I would not. There will be . . . would be . . . enough time after marriage to undertake all of that.”
“All of that. You make it sound like work. Not one little kiss? To know what to look forward to?”
“Nay.”
He wouldn’t? Not even one?
“Oh. Well.” The captain slumped against me as if his argument had been exhausted.
I pushed back.
“Was there nothing else, Captain?”
“Hmm? Oh. And also, I had a wish to test you.”
“Test me?”
“Aye. Had a savage truly crept up on me, were we truly wrestling upon the ground, no good would have come of announcing your presence. And were there other savages about, surely you would be dead by now.”
“Oh. So . . . I failed, then.”
“Aye. In more ways than one. Now, back to your post. Better luck next time. Off you go. Step sharp!”
There was more rustling and snapping of limbs as John retreated.
“Boy walks with all the grace of a blind ox.”
Boy? He addressed John as if he himself were so very old, but the captain was of an age with Simeon Wright. And John was as much a man as they! I sat up and shoved at him to do the same.
“You can thank me later.”
“For tumbling me into the brush and then grinding your elbow into my ribs?”
“Hush. I would hate to have him return, in silence this time, and find you here with me. How would you ever explain yourself? Do you not find it curious that he mentioned no intentions toward you?”
“I do not. ’Tis none of your business.”
“I am a man unmarried. Of course it is my business.” The captain shrugged, made as if to speak, then shrugged again instead. “Well . . . have you your cloth?”
“What? You were going to speak.”
His lips pursed, his eyes narrowed, but he shook his head. “I do not wish to say.”
“What is it?”
He opened his mouth, glanced at me, and then closed it. “Nay.”
“Tell it to me this minute or I shall scream.”
“ ’Tis simply, my dear, that you deserve better.”
“Nay, I do—” I halted, realizing he nearly had me disagree with him, telling him that I did not deserve better. But then, I did not agree with him. John Prescotte was good enough. Was better. Was fine. He was better than fine! I gathered my thoughts. “I do not agree with you.”
He pulled me up. And then he stepped close. “You deserve someone who would want to kiss you given even the very slightest of opportunities.”
I could not think of anything to say to him. My ears had gone thick with a curious buzz, so I turned my back to him and left. Took two steps before I realized I had started off in the wrong direction. Turned once more and walked past that man and headed home.
But as I walked, I turned John’s words over in my mind. Although we had both said the same thing in reply to the captain’s baiting, there was a very great difference between not wanting to kiss your intended and knowing that your intended did not wish to kiss you.
God curse the man for putting a question mark into my head where none had the right to be!
But as soon as I had thought it, I knew that I had sinned. No man deserved to be cursed. And so, as I walked along, I prayed.
“Dear God, please forgive me. A man such as the captain, controlled by carnal lust, though he chose his words deliberately for the purpose of teasing and baiting, and though he sees chastity as no virtue . . . though he mocks our ways at every possibility and turns every good thought into a jest . . .”
Was it even possible for God to save such a man?
“Though his time with us is short, may he see his errors and revel in your grace and become a convert to your truth.”
Even though he lies incessantly.
“May it be done through your wisdom and according to your mercy. May I see him on the far side of eternity, a redeemed soul.”
Though you would not make me speak to him, God, would you?
“Amen.”
Would you?
10
THOMAS RETURNED FROM THE WATCH AT THE rising of the sun.
I was ready for him, pulling his doublet from his shoulders and offering him a jug of water with which to wash his face. The biscuits I placed before him were enriched with a precious handful of wheat flour, and the cheese I offered was the creamiest that was left us.
He followed the food with a cup of cider. And then he stood and took his doublet from the peg where I had hung it.
“Can you not take even a small rest?”
He turned round and looked at me, his face without any expression, red-rimmed eyes looking into mine. Smudges pressed into the space beneath his eyes made his skin seem even paler. “Nay. But thank yo
u for thinking of me.”
I blushed, for I had thought of him.
One corner of his mouth lifted in an attempt at a smile, and then he was gone. Out the door and to the smithery.
Aye, I had thought of him. And worse, I had shown it.
The captain came back the next morning as Nathaniel and Father were headed out. Mother placed his food before him as Mary and I began our labors. I endeavored to ignore him as we prepared for the day’s task: cheese making. I poured a quantity of milk into a kettle, Mary added some rennet to it, and together we hung it above the fire.
As we worked we stepped around several tool handles that Father had placed in the ashes to season. Had that been the only thing he had subjected them to, none of us would have minded. But he had soaked them first in manure for a full two weeks before he had brought them in to Mother. And manure smoked just as well as wood. Maybe better. Worse. Mother had muttered at her work throughout the whole of the day that he had laid them down.
Once the milk and rennet began to bubble, it was Mother’s task to watch it work. And it was our task to begin the preparations for dinner. By the time we sat to eat, the whey had been set aside for use on the morrow and the cheese wrapped in dry cloths.
Supper was nearly upon us when I went outside to get some firewood. The captain surprised me with his presence near the fence. “Would you wish to walk?”
I eyed the garden before us, looking for some task that needed to be done, but I could see none. Mary and I had worked too hard at weeding that forenoon. “Why?” The thought of his comments the previous night still had the power to pink my cheeks when I remembered them. Not that I had very often. Nor failed to follow them quickly with some thought of John.
“For the pleasure of another’s company on a pleasant summer’s evening.”
Surely he must be jesting. “There is more than walking that needs be done this day!”
“And I am sure that with your industry, you shall accomplish it. But why not take two minutes to accompany me? To walk beside me. To appreciate the beauty in the evening that lays itself before us.”
“It can be appreciated from inside the house with a ladle in my hand as well as here, idling with you.”
“Must you always be so busy?”
“Have you not heard that idle hands are the devil’s workshop?”
He reached up a finger to scratch behind his ear. “I seem to recall being told the same. By a knobbly-headed Puritan with a great air of nothing better to do than to find fault with me. And if I recall correctly, he was doing naught himself. Just as you are now. So why not walk a turn with me . . . since you seem to be doing nothing at all in any case?”
I did not know whether to be galled that he had called us Puritans knobbly-headed or to be shamed that he had discovered me to be absent some useful activity.
He took several steps away from me toward the hill.
I followed him so that I could speak to him . . . once I had determined what it was I wished to say. “We have not, all of us, knobbly heads!”
“Nay. I spoke a mistruth. Some of you are roundheaded and blockheaded as well. Come. Perhaps you misread my intentions. I do not wish to accost you. I simply wish to come to know you better.”
“Know me?”
“Aye.”
“Know what?”
“From where have you come—”
“Boston.”
“And where are you going?”
“To gather firewood. Now, if you will excuse me.”
“Why can you not be restful? And where are your manners? Do you not wish to know more of me?”
He seemed so certain that he was a fascination that for an instant I longed to tell him that I did not. But it would have been a lie. And so I said nothing.
“Where I am from, for instance? Do you not wish to know that?”
“Where are you from, then?”
“Gloucester. And you do not have to ask so meanly.”
“I do not have to ask at all.”
“Is there nothing more you wish to know of me?”
Aye. There was. I wished to know how he could laugh so easily when life was so difficult. How he could be so confident when all was so uncertain. And most of all, I wished to know . . . everything. Everything about who he was and why. But I could ask him none of those things. And so I asked him something else instead.
“You are a soldier for long?”
“Aye. Too long.” My question must have disappointed him, for he turned from me. But then, just as quickly, he turned back. “You know, you do not have to live like these people.”
Like these people? These people were me! “How else would you have me live?”
“Less . . . gravely. Can you never be restful?”
“I can. As I occupy my hands with a task, then my mind can dwell on other things.”
“Such as?”
“Such as . . . God’s great love and His benefits. His care for me and all of His children.”
“Do your thoughts never go to such things as the setting sun or an evening’s first star?” He swept his arm forward toward the valley.
As I followed his gesture, I gasped at the beauty of what lay before me. The sky glinted as if dipped in gilt. “I have never seen such a sight.” I was always too busy with preparations for supper.
“I thought not. Or you would not have protested so greatly.”
I tore my eyes from the sun’s setting to fix them upon his own.
Fascinating. They had gone purple in the shadow of the evening. I blinked. And then I remembered who I was and what I was about. “I have dawdled long enough.”
“Nay. I daresay you do not dawdle enough.”
Was he daft as well as vain? “We must none of us waste anything that God, in His goodness, has granted us. One day we shall have to stand before Him and account for it all.”
“Really? You believe that? That God is some glorified clerk, tracking all the minutes of one’s day? As if He has nothing better to do?”
“You say He does not care what we do with our time?”
“I say I hope I do the things that please Him most, but I can count on the fact that I will fail to. Most abysmally at times.”
“Which means you must simply try all the more to please Him.”
“Nay. It simply means that I rejoice all the more in His grace, knowing how truly wretched I am. Do you not believe in grace? Is that why you must work so hard?”
“Aye. Nay. Of course I believe in God’s grace. But we must none of us rely upon it.”
“Why? Because God is not trustworthy?”
“You twist my words to make them mean things I did not say!”
“I make them mean exactly what you say. You seem as if you know the right answers, but I ask you, Susannah Phillips: Do you know the right questions?” His eyes softened, changing from purple to periwinkle. “Do you not think that my time here and your time now is being put to good use?”
He seemed to almost pity me. I had liked it better when he had professed an interest in me. He wanted my own words? Well then, he would have them! “I cannot think how it could be, seeing that we do nothing but engage in idle chatter.”
“There is no finer moment in life than one spent speaking to a beautiful girl on a beautiful night. You cannot tell me that even here, right now, God does not instruct me on the goodness of His grace and His benefits. ’Tis here, at this moment, that I know He truly cares for me.”
“And how do you know it?”
His teeth flashed in the gloaming. “If He did not care for me,
He would not have sent me here. And, I daresay, did He not care for you—”
“No matter what you think of our customs, Captain, you still do not know how many days you have left on this earth. I should think you would care more for tending to your soul than coaxing a smile from me.”
“But who is to say that coaxing a smile from you would not be the chiefest end and greatest glory of all my days?”
“You will not have it this night.”
“Pity. Then I suppose that I shall have to live one day more.”
I turned from him, marched toward home, and picked out my firewood. But just before entering the house, I turned my face toward the sunset and savored its last lingering traces.
The next morning, in a change from our normal tasks, Mother set Mary to the making of our biscuits.
“But why cannot Susannah—”
“Because Susannah knows very well how to do this. And if I read the signs correctly, she may soon be leaving us.”
I blushed.
Mary frowned.
“So tell me, if you please, what is the first consideration?”
Mary and I grimaced at each other and answered in unison. “Always set aside some of the mother dough for future use.”
Mother beamed. “Such good girls, I have.”
Mary measured out a portion of the mother dough and put it back into its crock. Mother and I watched as she added flour and water to the dough that remained on the board in front of her. Kneading it with awkward movements, she pushed at it, folded it in upon itself, and then turned it.
Mother intervened, showed her how to do it more ably. “One and push. Two and fold. Three and turn. ’Tis a dance of your hands with the dough. And if you do not lead out, the dough knows not what to do.”
As Mary worked, Mother watched her with ill-concealed apprehension. “ ’Tis my pride and joy, that mother dough. From my own family back as far as can be remembered. From my mother and my mother’s mother. And her mother before her. And her mother before her. To think that I join my hands with theirs whenever I make biscuits. . . .” She turned to me, her eyes both bright and sad. “When you are married, I will give some of it to you, joining your own hands to mine . . . and then you shall pass it to your own daughter.” She shook her head as she swiped at the corner of her eye with the edge of her apron. “A sentimental fool is what I am.”
“And you’ve the best biscuits in town.” Mary’s dough was growing glossy, and she pushed her words out to the rhythm of her kneading.
“The best we’ve ever tasted.” I could match Mary’s pride with my own.
Mother smiled and let go of her apron. If the sin of vanity could ever be found in her, it would be linked to the pride she took in her biscuits.
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